The Jester and the King

I. The King Speaks

He is my life, the ember of my heart, the bowl that holds my soul. I hate him. I hate his wild limbs, his vital ribs, his skull-grin, his clanging laugh. I hate the way he shows me everything, everything.

Many times, I reached out with my armored hand, each soldier a finger. Each time that I drew it back with fewer fingers left, and yet clasping nothing, he cackled and danced and his poetry forced shame down my throat.

When I brought young women to me, beckoned them with a careless wave, he mocked me that they shrank from me in the night. I didn't tell him they did. But he knew. I don't beckon them now.

When my sons and daughters wept at what I chose for them, when they howled for freedom and I wouldn't give it — had I not begotten them for just these purposes? — his small jokes, his sly winks, taught them rebellion and escape. I don't know where they are, and I sit at table alone.

I could kill him. Hear my voice: no rage or spite. I tell you simply, I could.

Except I can't.

The cord between us, wet and pulsing, can't be cut. You don't see it, do you? You don't feel it, or hear the rush of blood back and forth along its purple veins. You don't believe in it.

How wonderful for you, to have that choice.


II. The Jester Speaks

I tried to leave once. Got as far as that hill. The only thing I remember is hot, stretching agony, and then waking, helpless, in my bed. The cord, it seems, cannot be torn.

I know more about him than he does. I see him disgusted by his desires and fears. I see the man who wishes...who wishes he could be....

Good.

Maybe someday he will see the difference between wishing and wanting. Maybe, instead of straining against the cord, he will grasp it to save himself. That's what I had to do. The evil of the king gives me life. I exist to be his jester. Which is to say, to show him his true self, forever. Hate him? No! Maybe, someday, he will see how alike two brothers can be.



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Three Feet from Doom

This play was performed on June 5, 2009 in England as part of the Gone in 60 Seconds International Play Festival; there is a link to the performance on that site. Go to timestamp 1:01 (one hour, one minute).

Three Feet from Doom
by Laura E. Goodin
© 2009

CHARACTERS
CURTIS a man
GERALDINE a woman

(Enter CURTIS and GERALDINE. She is carrying a computer bag.)

CURTIS
That went well.

GERALDINE
I'm still nervous. You saw the way he looked at me.

CURTIS
Who, Stone?

GERALDINE
Gives me the shivers. Eyes like outer space.

CURTIS
I don't care what they say in the lunchroom. His being an alien is just a theory.

GERALDINE
So I guess it's normal for him to have three feet.

CURTIS
Oh, he does not. Where's the third one?

GERALDINE
Take a look at his left shoe sometime. It's all lumpy.

CURTIS
I'm going back in there and flat-out ask him.

GERALDINE
Go ahead. You'll see it's not a theory when he kidnaps you to keep you quiet and you're staring at Earth from somewhere around Orion's butt.

CURTIS
Don't you mean Orion's belt?

GERALDINE
Not where you're concerned.

CURTIS
You really think he's an alien. And he has many powers, and three feet.

GERALDINE
Well, I'm not sure about the powers. But he is planning interstellar domination!

CURTIS
Starting at the Australian Tax Office.

GERALDINE
Where better?

(Sudden sounds of ray-gun fire.)

Oh, God, I thought I had weeks yet!

(Pulls from her bag the most spectacular ray gun the props department can cobble together. Runs offstage, shouting.)

Stone! Stone, you bastard! Earth will never surrender!

(Pause.)

CURTIS
(Looks around furtively. Pulls a walkie-talkie or sufficiently weird-looking phone from a pocket.)

Yeah, she's gone, finally. Got distracted. Some wannabe named Stone, trying to launch his own pissy little invasion. The universe is full of amateurs. So are we ready to activate? Yeah, good, my feet are all killing me.

(Striking a pose.)

Let the invasion begin!

CURTAIN






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